


Burning House

by jujubiest



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Everybody wants to talk to Mick Rory, Fix-It, M/M, Mick Rory just wants to be left alone, Mick wants to make Ray blush as often as possible, Other, Post-Left Behind, Ray just wants to help and be a friend, Sara wants these dudes to figure their shit out, Time Travel, and maybe to pound on Leonard Snart's smug face a little, meanwhile Len just wants his partner back
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-07-13 22:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7139645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mick Rory is back on the Waverider after his centuries-long stint as Chronos, wavering on the line between seeking escape and forgiveness. Meanwhile, his old partner has a decision to make.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU after "Left Behind," because Leonard Snart and Mick Rory deserved a better resolution to their break than a damn fist-fight. I mean come on.

_"I had a dream about a burning house._

_You were stuck inside; I couldn't get you out_

_I laid beside you and pulled you close,_

_and the two of us went up in smoke."_

* * *

 

Len was telling the truth, whether Mick will ever believe him or not. He always intended to go back. Even when he took Mick out to those woods, telling himself he had to end this, a part of Len knew he could never— _would_ never—do it.

Mick's more than a friend. He's family. Len has known him longer than anyone except Lisa, and she only beats him by two years. Mick is his _partner._ In nearly thirty years, that's one of the few things about Len's life that hasn't changed.

Until now.

Because something about _Len_ has changed. Somehow, these people and this mission have become important to him. He's always been careful who and what he allows himself to get invested in, but for the first time since he was maybe sixteen or seventeen, he cares about something further away than his own arm's reach. It’s terrifying.

He wants to do more than survive in the world; he wants to matter, he wants to _change_ something.

And Mick is wrong about one thing...it didn't start when they stepped onto the Waverider. He's not sure when it began.  


_He looks down at Mick, hands bound, on his knees. Anger in his eyes that doesn't quite mask the hurt._

_He remembers standing over his father's body, staring at the spike of ice through his chest and feeling nothing. He wishes this could be more like that. Instead, he feels like he's the one being impaled, afire with pain and yet cold all over._

_He didn't lose any sleep over killing Lewis, but he doesn't think for a second the same will be true here._  
  


Maybe, he thinks, it was ridding himself of the living reminder, embodiment, _cause_ of all the painful moments that made him who he is. Maybe some part of him had believed that without his father alive to tether him to his past, he could do something new. Be someone better.

Or maybe the source of the change wears a ridiculous red suit and runs around doing good deeds for no reason but kindness, like some bizarre Millennial Santa Claus on speed.

Hell, maybe his better angels have always been there, hovering over his shoulder, awaiting a chance to be heard.

He doesn't know.

He just knows that after 2046 he realized he was different, that what he wanted had changed…and that Mick was the same person he’d always been, and what he wanted hadn't changed at all.

Not being on the same page with Mick was so painful that he almost wished he could change back.

Almost.

He couldn’t trust Mick with the team anymore, and he couldn’t kill him or leave him behind…so he did what he does best: he came up with a plan.

He would leave Mick, finish his mission, and then go back to that moment and pick him up. They would go home, and then everything would get back to normal, eventually. Somehow.

But something must have gone horribly wrong—or _will_ go horribly wrong—because the next time Len sees Mick he's wearing the armor of Chronos, and he tells a story that makes Len sick with regret: how he was alone so long he nearly went mad.

How the Time Masters found him and made him into this.

How he's had _lifetimes_ to hate Len, how hunting him and taking his revenge has become more important to him than anything...even the fire that used to be his first love.

He can only stare numbly into the makeshift prison cell rigged up by Rip. The man sitting there stares back with hate in his eyes, and he’s not Len’s Mick at all. His Mick, for all his rough edges and dangerous impulses, has never hated anyone like this.

Rip thinks Chronos can be reformed, and he’s convinced the rest of the team of it, too. But Len knows better. This monster is a bigger threat than his partner ever was, and he needs to be put down.

Meanwhile, Mick Rory is still out there somewhere, suffering, thinking he's been abandoned to die. Len is not about to let that future play out.

Someday soon, when this mission is over, he _is_ going to go back and correct this colossal mistake. He’ll steal the ship if he has to; loyal to the _team_ as he is, he doesn’t consider Rip Hunter a part of that team. He’s seen how ready Rip is to sacrifice them all, one at a time, if that’s what it takes.

Len learned a long time ago not to give his loyalty to people who have none to give in return.

* * *

 

"Hey, man."

Chronos— _Mick_ —is sitting in the back corner of his cell, elbows propped on his knees, glaring at the floor. He looks up when he's addressed, and for a second, his expression slips. He's surprised.

Jax grins and pulls a chair up close to the energy field that closes this space off from the rest of the ship. Mick's glare falls back into place within a second, but he doesn't turn away when Jax starts talking to him.

"So, I guess you've been around the block a few more times than the rest of us at this point," he starts, trying to keep his tone light. "Probably know more about time travel than Rip, even."

He swears he sees Mick's mouth twitch, just a tiny bit.

"Listen," he continues, sobering slightly. "I just wanted you to know...I'm glad you're back. And that I get why you tried to give the ship to those pirates."

Mick's glower deepens, and he finally looks away from Jax's eyes, down at his hands. Jax is fine with that. This is the longest conversation he's had with Mick, before or after his departure, and it's awkward as hell. But if Mick’s going to be around for a while, there’s something Jax wants him to know.

"What Rip said wasn't true," he says finally, softly. He's looking at his hands, too, so he doesn't see the way Mick's head jerks up.

"He was wrong to say that stuff. About how you weren't needed. Maybe he didn't plan for you to be a part of the team...but he should’ve. 'Cause you've saved all our lives at least once, even though you didn't really wanna be here."

He takes a deep breath and forces himself to look up. He's momentarily surprised to see that Mick is looking back at him, but he recovers quickly.

"I know you still don't wanna be here, that all you wanted back then was to go home. I get that, too. I miss my old life sometimes, even if it wasn't what I'd always planned for myself. I miss my mom. I hope I'll get back to her someday. I just wanted you to know that...if you decide to stay with us after all, whatever Rip thinks...we do need you. We want you here. I want you here."

He stands up, smoothing his hands down the legs of his jeans to hide his sweaty palms.

"Anyway, that's all I wanted to say," he says, before turning to leave Mick in peace.

He's almost to the door when Mick speaks. And...he sounds like _Mick._

"Hey. Kid."

Jax turns slowly, holding his breath. Mick...doesn't smile, exactly. But he looks a lot less angry than he did when Jax first walked into the room.

"Glad you managed not to get yourself killed while I was gone," he offers gruffly, not quite meeting Jax's eyes again. It's a small thing, and there's still an edge of anger in the way he holds his shoulders so square and tense, ready for a fight. But it's still _something._ Jax grins from ear to ear.

"Yeah, well. Figured you'd be pissed if I went and undid all your hard work keeping me alive."

That earns him a grunt of what might be agreement, and then there doesn't seem to be anything else to say. Jax decides to leave before the moment grows any more awkward.

"Talk later, man," he promises, and retreats from the room.

* * *

 

Life on the Waverider takes on a distinctly tense atmosphere with their new prisoner on board. After Jax’s visit most of the rest of the team avoid the room where Mick is being held. He’s fine with that. Seeing them just makes him angry…and confused.

His temper has always burned hot, but quick. Apparently, spending lifetimes being trained by the Time Masters didn’t change that. The moment he had a chance to actually _vent_ some of his anger toward Snart, it began to fade. That thought scares him as few things can anymore, because without that anger he isn’t sure what he’ll have to anchor himself with.

His head is swarming with too many lives, all the timelines he’s crossed. He worries that he’ll become more and more disoriented the longer he stays with these people, moving through their timeline. It’s not _his_ timeline, not really. Then again, he isn’t sure where or when he really belongs anymore.

And at least once a day, usually in the late hours when he knows everyone will be bunking down, he feels it: a shift and pull followed by a horrible _fading_ feeling.

That would be Len—Snart—fighting with himself. Trying to make up his mind.

And once he does, one way or another, Mick Rory will be gone for good.

* * *

 

The next person who comes to see him is the last one he would have expected, and the one he has the most mixed feelings about, after Snart.

“Sara,” he acknowledges her quietly, not moving from his spot against the cell’s interior wall.

“Mick.” She lounges against the wall opposite his, as far away from him as it’s possible to get without moving him out of her line of sight. He’s surprised. From what he remembers, Sara is afraid of nothing, except perhaps herself.

“You come to tell me more about how much you’re rooting for me to make a full recovery?” He doesn’t intend to sound as angry as he does, but that’s how it comes out. Seeing her brings it all back, a hot rush of betrayal and pain.

 _You’re the reason_ , he thinks. _He chose you over me_.

And even though he knows that’s not precisely true, he can’t make himself feel it, because he still doesn’t know _why_ Len left him. Not knowing nearly drove him crazy once already. At least this—Sara, strong, beautiful, capable Sara—is something he could understand.

“I came to tell you you’re a jackass,” she says, tone just as harsh as his.

He blinks, then pulls his face into a sneer.

“Message received. Is that it?”

Sara pushes herself off the wall and approaches the energy field warily.

“No,” she says, voice softening. “That’s not it. I came to ask you why you did it.”

He blinks again. This conversation is just full of surprises.

“Does it matter?”

“To me it does. I mean…I know you weren’t exactly on the hero train with the rest of us, but you were still a member of the team. You fought beside us, protected us.”

“I protected Snart,” he says angrily. “And look where that got me.”

“You helped put yourself in here, Mick. Don’t pretend this is all Len’s fault.”

“It is his fault!” Mick bursts out, rage flaring up in him. “We were supposed to be a team! Me and him! And then he found a better one, and took me out to the woods to be put down like a mad dog!”

He realizes he’s gotten to his feet and moved, now standing barely a foot from the energy barrier. Sara stares calmly at him, expression neutral. He wishes she would retreat to the wall, like before. He wants distance between them, but is unwilling to take a step back.

“Len told me how you two met,” she says softly, and Mick wants to punch through the barrier and make her shut up. He already knows from experience that trying it will only get him a pair of numb fists and a lot more pent-up frustration.

“He says you saved him…that you took care of him. And now he feels responsible for you.”

Mick snorts. He wants to choke those words out of her, and then go and find Len, and kill him for sharing them. That memory—their story _—_ doesn’t belong to her. She doesn’t get to use it against him.

“I’d be careful how attached you get to old Lenny, Sara,” he says instead, voice a low, menacing rumble. “One day you might be the one he leaves behind. Hell, you two don’t have all that much history _…_ he might even have the guts to shoot you.” He lets his mouth spread into a vicious grin.

Sara’s eyes narrow, but she doesn’t dignify the comment with a direct answer.

“Mick…I liked you, once. I know you liked me. We made a good team, the three of us. Now, I don’t know what you think I did, but the problems between you and Len? They’re not my problems. And until you two figure things out, I don’t want anything to do with either of you.”

Her eyes are intense, her words delivered sharp and slow, like she’s trying to send him some hidden message.

He thinks he gets it. Sara must see that, because her rigid posture relaxes somewhat.

“He misses you.” She almost smiles at him. He doesn’t return the smile, but he can’t muster a glare either. He’s just so…tired.

“Yeah, I’ll believe it when he shows up here,” he says, and he can’t keep the exhaustion and bitterness from his voice. Sara nods.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says, and then leaves.

He doesn’t hold out much hope that she’ll be successful. He knows Len. Once he makes up his mind about something, it would take a small miracle to change it.

Mick’s never been a big believer in miracles.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The visits to Mick's makeshift cell continue...but it's anyone's guess what effect they're really having.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started this after the Chronos reveal in season one. As a consequence, you may notice my view of the Legends and their treatment of Mick is...overly optimistic, in light of season two. I'm choosing to continue writing them as the better people I believed them to be back then. As a result, you might notice that most if not all of them are OOC according to season two...but I hope not according to season one.
> 
> Concrit is welcome!

Ray pokes his head around the corner before taking a hesitant step into the room.

“Hey, Mick?” He offers one of those nervous smiles Mick always found so irritating. “Mind if I come sit with you for a while?”

Mick gestures to the impenetrable force-field in front of him.

“Not like I can stop ya.” But then, because Ray looks like he might retreat and he _is_ the first person who’s actually asked Mick what he wants, he jerks his head toward the chair against the far wall. “Come on in, Pretty.”

Ray blushes predictably and steps the rest of the way into the room.

“That’s the second time you’ve called me that,” he notes, deceptively casual.

“S’more descriptive than ‘Haircut.’”

“You know…you could always call me by, I dunno, my name.”

“Yeah,” Mick almost-smirks at him. “But where would be the fun in that?”

Ray shakes his head, exasperated, and pulls the chair over, turning it around and straddling it backwards. He leans his arms on the back and regards Mick carefully.

“There’s one thing I don’t get,” he says finally. “You saved my life in the gulag. And I know you tried to play it off as no big deal, like you were doing it just to pay me back for taking that beating for you while we were being tortured. But I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t buy it now. You’re not a villain, Mick. You’re a…a good guy, who’s made some bad choices. And who has a deeply disturbing relationship with fire, I guess.”

Mick wants to laugh in Ray’s face. It’s not funny.

“I’m not a good guy, kid.”

“No, see…that’s what you’ve convinced yourself, but—”

“Do you know what I said to Snart when I had him on my ship?” He interrupts, so he won’t have to hear this. Is this what happened to Len? Some stupid, overly-earnest do-gooder sat in front of him and told him he could be good a few times, and he believed it?

Mick doesn’t think that will work for him. Ray’s not going to be able to puppy-dog eye him to normal. Though if his expression is anything to go by, he’s ready to die trying.

“…No,” Ray answers him haltingly. “But—”

“You know he has a sister. Lisa. Did you ever meet Lisa? She’s a real sweetheart. Oh, don’t get me wrong…she’s a criminal, crazier’n hell. Not as bad as me, but still. She’s not one of the good guys by you hero standards, but she’s a good kid. I used to babysit her when she was little. Let her hang out in my workshop, taught her how to clean and handle a gun. Len was pissed.”

Ray looks confused as to where this is going, so Mick decides to cut to the chase.

“I showed him an image of his sister, someone I know means more to him than anyone. Someone I used to take care of. And I told him I was gonna take him to Central City and make him watch while I killed her. Not once. No, the beautiful thing about time travel, I told him, is that I could kill her in front of him over, and over, and over again.”

He hears how sick the memory makes him in his own voice. He was just so _angry._ And at the time, he’d relished the pain on Len’s face, the helpless fear.

Ray lets that sink in for a moment, never taking his eyes from Mick’s face. Finally, he speaks.

“You didn’t mean it,” he says decisively. Mick snorts.

“No, kid, see…that’s the thing. I did mean it. At the time I meant every word. Because that’s who I am…that’s why Len should’ve killed me when he had the chance.”

“Mick…okay. You’re impulsive. To a degree that’s pathological,” he adds when he sees Mick’s skeptical eyebrow. “But…that doesn’t mean you’re beyond help. I mean, you _didn’t_ hurt Lisa…you didn’t do anything that can’t be forgiven, and you don’t have to. You’ve done a lot of good things as a part of this team. You’ve saved all our lives at least once. That’s all gotta count for something, right?”

Mick doesn’t reply, so Ray keeps going.

“And before that, there was a long time where you weren’t on the radar at all. You weren’t going off and hurting people. What helped you keep control then?”

Mick closes his eyes.

“Len.”

“Oh.” Ray says, taken aback. He doesn’t have to ask why that won’t work anymore. Whatever was between Mick and Len, it’s broken now. On both sides. Whether it can be repaired remains to be seen, but Mick can’t trust Len with himself right now, and Len can’t trust Mick with anyone else.

“So…what do you need? Just someone to…I dunno…tell you when you’re going overboard?”

“That helps. But also, someone who can stop me when I go overboard anyway…or at least limit the fallout.”

Ray considers for a moment. Then:

“Okay. I think I could handle that.”

Mick barks a laugh, incredulous. “What?”

Ray blushes enticingly again, averting his eyes.

“I mean…I know you don’t know me that well…not well enough to trust me like you used to trust him, but…maybe we could work up to that?”

“You offering to be my Jiminy Cricket?” Mick is still chortling. Ray cracks a smile himself.

“Yeah…I guess so. What’s the worst that could happen, right?”

Mick laughs even harder at that.

* * *

 

Mick’s a little surprised when Stein shows up outside his cell. He’d openly admired the professor’s devious and reckless actions in the past. He was a man who could improvise, and Mick related to that. And he privately enjoyed how uncomfortable it made the old man when he expressed his approval. It gave him a perverse enjoyment to watch Stein’s internal turmoil as he tried to re-evaluate himself in light of the fact that the pyromaniac criminal wanted to be his best bud.

He’d thought that discomfort would keep Stein away now, even if he had spoken up for him—quite eloquently—when he was imprisoned.

Apparently, he was wrong.

“Mr. Rory,” Stein greets him. “I trust your accommodations here are not too uncomfortable.”

Mick raises an eyebrow.

“We both know I’ve had worse, professor.”

Stein has the grace to look flustered.

“Yes, of course. I only meant…I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” he blurts, changing course in mid-sentence and then looking appalled at himself. “I confess that I…enjoyed working alongside you. I would like to see you return to us one day.”

Mick doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing. After a few moments of tense silence, Stein leaves.

Mick isn’t sure how much more of this he can stand.

* * *

When he looks up and sees Rip outside his cell, he expects a flare of rage to overtake him. Surprisingly, the only thing he can muster is the barest flickering of contempt.

“Rip Hunter,” he growls. “Oh, I was wondering when you’d come to see me. For all your talk about reforming me, it sure as hell took you long enough.”

“Mr. Rory,” Rip starts, and Mick can’t hold in a mean little laugh.

“ _Mr. Rory._ So proper. So _respectful._ That’s good, Hunter. Really.” Rip’s mouth presses itself into a thin line of displeasure at the mocking tone in Mick’s voice.

“I didn’t come here to fight with you,” he begins, but Mick isn’t planning to let him say whatever he did come here for. He’s so finished with this asshole.

“Oh, I know what you came here for, Rip.” He drawls through the R in the name, inflecting enough violence into that single syllable to make Rip wince. It’s incredibly satisfying.

“You know, I learned all about you when I was with the Time Masters. You’re a real piece of work, even by my standards.”

“I assure you, anything you’ve been told—” Mick stops him short with a fist against the energy barrier, making it crackle and spark. Rip jumps. Mick grins, all teeth, relishing the numbness sneaking up his arm.

“You gonna tell me it’s not true?” He challenges. “That you didn’t betray your duty as a Time Master before you were even finished with training? You didn’t fall in love with some girl and let her give up her dream to be with you while you went on chasing yours?”

Rip has gone pale, his expression sick. He no longer tries to interrupt.

“The rest of your _team,_ ” he spits the word, “already suspect that your motives have less to do with saving the world and more with saving your own wife and son. But do they know the whole sad, ironic story? Do they know that if you had followed the rules of the Time Masters, your wife and son would never have been Savage’s targets in the first place?”

 _That_ gets Rip to speak.

“I didn’t—”

“You did!” Mick thunders. Another thing he’s learned from the Time Masters—how words can be used to burn a person from the inside out, more completely than fire and yet more subtly, scorching to a husk but leaving no visible trace of the damage done. Anger used to reduce him to silence and pointless, destructive action. Now, his anger makes him eloquent, and every word he speaks is like a white-hot brand to Rip Hunter’s flesh.

“You broke the laws of the Time Masters in order to marry your wife and have your child. Those laws exist for a reason, Rip. Did you think you were special? Did you think you were _exempt_? You don’t even have the excuse of ignorance! You knew the law, the risks, and you did it anyway. Savage may have killed your family, but you’re the one who put them in his path!”

“Stop! Stop it!” Rip’s face is hidden in his hands, and he’s shaking. If Mick were a good man, a redeemable man, the way the others want to think, he would feel pity. All he can muster is disgust. This man has ruined so many lives, Mick’s own included. The Time Masters may be tyrants, but they’re at least honest about their purpose and motives. Mick can appreciate that. But this, he has no respect for. It’s bad enough that Rip manipulates everyone around him. The fact that he’s begun to believe his own excuses and lies is beyond forgiveness as far as Mick is concerned.

“You should’ve left the Time Masters. Or stayed, and followed the rules. They didn’t force you to become one of them. Nobody put a gun to your head. You wanted all the perks without any of the consequences. But there are _always_ consequences, Rip. You can’t escape that.”

When Rip meets his eyes again, he looks broken. Numb. Mick recalls the feeling all too well, and thinks viciously that if anyone deserves that feeling, it’s Rip Hunter.

When he finally speaks, his voice is atonal, dead. It echoes the way Mick has felt for longer than he can remember.

“I came to…apologize. For what I said to you when we were captured. It was the truth, but I didn’t say it because it was true. I said it because I was frustrated and afraid, and you were an easy target.”

He doesn’t quite meet Mick’s eyes as he says it.

“What I should have said, had I cared so much about honesty in that moment as I pretended, is that regardless of my original intentions, it is a great stroke of providence that you were with us. You were a member of our team, and you more than carried your weight. In fact, you carried each of us at least once, when our strength failed. Myself included. I owed you gratitude and paid you instead with cruelty, and for that I am deeply sorry.”

He steps forward reaches for the keypad for Mick’s cell. He forces himself to meet Mick’s eyes.

“The rest of the team have urged me to set you free. If you wish to leave us, we will take you where you want to go. But if you wish to stay…the team would welcome you back.”

He presses a few keys and steps back, shoulders tensing as though braced for a blow. Mick understands why when, a moment later, the energy field disappears.

For the first time in weeks, he’s free. There’s nothing protecting Rip Hunter, or any of the rest of them, from his anger.

But he can’t summon it, not even a flicker. He makes no move towards Rip, who gradually relaxes. Mick feels rooted to the floor, frozen by Rip’s words, by his _apology._ By the knowledge that the team chose his fate, and that fate was freedom.

Rip sighs.

“Well, Mr. Rory…if you don’t intend to kill me where I stand, I shall take my leave of you.”

He turns and walks away, leaving Mick out in the open, no walls, no safeguards. No catch. Mick looks toward the hallway he disappeared into, but doesn’t move.

He doesn’t move for a long time.

* * *

 

Rip brushes past Len on the way out, too upset to really register him or his expression. If he had, he might have been worried.

Len looks stricken, but it’s quickly collapsing into fury.

He had been coming to talk to Mick. He’d put it off long enough, and Sara had finally had enough of his moping, it seemed. She’d practically dragged him to the hallway and left him there with instructions not to let her see him again until he’d sorted this mess out.

He wasn’t sure how he was going to even begin to do that, but he’d resolved himself to at least have a conversation with…with this person who was not his Mick Rory.

But then he’d heard Mick, yelling. And he’d stayed to hear Rip’s apology. And now all he wanted to do was go after Rip and ask him just what _exactly_ the hell he had been apologizing for.

He turns to go after him, but before he can take two steps he feels a heavy hand on his shoulder. He freezes, every muscle tensed, expecting an attack. But the hand simply sits there, thumb grazing the side of his neck.

“Don’t,” Mick says quietly. Len closes his eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath…the irony not lost on him, that Mick is the one calming _him_ down. Then he turns and takes in the implausible sight of Mick standing there, free of his cell.

“Jailbreak?” He asks sardonically, though he knows Rip let him out. But Mick almost-smiles, and that makes it worth asking a stupid question.

“Parole,” he corrects, his hand falling from Len’s shoulder. Len misses its heat immediately.

They’ve always been polar opposites, control and impulse, plans and improv, fire and ice…but together they had found some kind of equilibrium, and Len _misses_ that. And now, with that familiar face looking down at him, a question in those eyes, he can almost forget the hatred that rolled off him in waves, the terror he felt as this man described what he was going to do to Lisa to punish him.

Almost, but not quite. This, he reminds himself, is not his Mick Rory. So he lets the smile fall from his face, turns his back, and walks away. No move is made to stop him, though he can feel those eyes on him until he turns a corner and cuts himself off from their sight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mick is free, and slowly getting used to being a part of the team again. But despite the decision to set him free and let him stay, not every member of the Waverider crew is sold on the notion of Mick's redemption.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm awful. It's been forever since I updated this, and I've had a beta'd chapter ready for weeks now, but IRL stuff just kept getting in the way of sitting down and posting.
> 
> The next chapter should take less time. Hopefully. Thanks so much to everyone who's read this and kept encouraging me to continue it! 
> 
> And a big thank you to hydrosspyross for beta-reading this!

Mick stands at the door of his old room, staring around in disbelief. The room was never decorated, per se…he never carries much with him anyway, and he hadn’t exactly become a nester in the time he’d spent with the team, before it all went so wrong.

But what little there was has remained untouched. It’s all there: his goggles, tossed carelessly on the desk, as if he’d just been here yesterday. His bed is clumsily made, with an extra blanket folded at the foot. His heat gun is in a bracket on the wall by the door, within easy reach. And the image screen on the wall is set to a crackling fire, just the way he left it. He stares at that for a long moment, willing that familiar sense of calm to wash over him. But that part of him is long gone, lost to a dozen lives lived in the Vanishing Point.

He steps inside, cautiously, as if expecting it to all disappear. He can’t believe they didn’t throw out any of this junk…but then, he reminds himself, he’s only been gone for a couple of weeks by their reckoning. Perhaps they just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

He sits heavily on the bed and reaches under the edge of the mattress, feeling for—it’s not there.

His lighter, the one he used to use to get to sleep. It’s gone. He frowns. It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, but…he misses the weight of it in his hand. It was familiar. Reassuring.

A knock at the door draws his attention away from the question of his missing lighter. A slight figure hovers just outside the circle of illumination cast from the light in the ceiling. Kendra.

“Your turn to tell me how I can be a better man if I just believe?”

She steps inside the room and presses the button that closes the door.

“No,” she says, her voice and eyes hard. “I’m here to tell you that nothing you do is going to make up for killing Aldous. You may look like Mick, you may be him in some twisted future path your life takes…but you’re not our Mick Rory. You’re just the killer for hire who took my son away from me.”

He just looks at her for a moment.

“There’s nothing I can say to you,” he says simply, finally.

“You’re right. There’s not.”

“If you could bring me—the other Mick, your Mick—back…would you forgive him?”

It takes her a long time to answer. When she does, her face is a twisted mask of conflicted emotions.

“I wouldn’t need to,” she says. “He never did anything to hurt me.”

He just looks at her, at first, but finds that it’s hard to do so for long. So he looks at his hands instead…hands that killed her _kid._ He wouldn’t blame her if she killed him where he sat. Hell, he would understand.

It’s not until she leaves and he pulls air into aching lungs that he realizes he’d been holding his breath, waiting for a blow to fall.

* * *

 

He doesn’t go on missions. The team isn’t ready to trust him that far yet, and honestly he doesn’t trust himself either. He’s still angry; it hits him in waves and in moments when he least expects it, and it’s easy enough to handle when that’s all he has to focus on, but he’s not sure what he’d do if it hit him while he was out in the field, with his heat gun in hand.

He has the run of the Waverider, which is better than a cell barely big enough to pace in. He spends most of his time working with Jax. The kid is easy to be around, and there always seems to be something on the ship in need of repair. Mick didn’t realize it before, but the Waverider is kind of a piece of junk. Jax teaches Mick as they go, showing him rather than just rattling off instructions.

They work well together, and inside a month they’ve made the Waverider a better ship than it started out, for sure. Gideon actually compliments them on their work one day, in front of the rest of the team. Mick doesn’t know what’s funnier: watching Jax’s ears turn red at the unexpected praise, or watching Rip’s face turn purple when he realizes they’ve been “tampering” with his ship this entire time.

But in the end, Rip can’t do much more than sputter and glare, because it’s clear that they really have made a significant improvement.

Mick steers clear of the rest of the team for the most part, letting them come to him. Ray is the most forward, as usual. He checks in with Mick almost daily, buoyant and obnoxiously chipper as ever. Mick endures him with gritted teeth, at first.

Then, one day, Mick wakes up ready to tear the world apart, for no reason he can name. He tries to hold it in, doesn’t say anything…but his hands are itching to grab his old heat gun and cause some destruction. He hasn’t felt this out of control since before the Time Masters found him, and it terrifies him. He’d thought at least one good thing had come from everything  that’d been done to him. That he wouldn’t itch to burn things down anymore, at least not in a literal sense.

Apparently, he’s just not that lucky.

No one notices, or so he thinks. He sees Len give him a look from across the room, but there’s no understanding in it, no help to be had. Just vindication. Like he knew Mick would explode sooner or later, and was just waiting to be proved right.

That almost does it, on its own. That smug, knowing look on Len’s face. He’s ready to cross that room and tear into Len, rip that look right off his face.

But before he can take a step, he feels a warm hand on his elbow. Not restraining. Just resting there. A voice in his ear, soft but not placating. Cheerful.

“Hey, Mick,” Ray says. “How’s it goin’?”

He turns, and there are those big eyes, a smile that doesn’t quite hide the concern. But somehow, Mick gets that Ray is concerned about _him._ Not just about what he might do. He’s not sure how the guy manages to get that across with nothing but a touch, a look, and less than half a dozen words. But he does, and it sends a wash of calm over Mick’s anxious mind. He takes a breath.

“S’good,” he says gruffly. Ray’s smile widens, and the hand at his elbow gives a little squeeze before releasing him.

It’s not gone, not completely. Not even Len could ever do that. But it’s something Mick can manage. He’s not going to explode. He’s not going to prove Len right, or Ray wrong.

“Thanks, Pretty,” he mumbles later, as he passes Ray on his way to make some adjustments to the nav computer. He enjoys the way the red creeps up Ray’s neck far too much.

* * *

 

Mick catches Len watching him several times after that, waiting for him to slip up. Mick takes a savage pleasure in disappointing him. He doesn’t know what he wants, or where he belongs, or why he chose to stay here…but this is what he’s found for the moment, and if he leaves it’s going to be because he chooses to go, not because he does something stupid that helps Len convince the others to dump his ass out somewhere—or kill him off for good this time.

But the longer he goes without messing up, the harder it gets to keep from snapping when Len continues to watch him, until one day he looks up from what he’s doing—fixing some finicky piece of crap Time Master mechanics—to glare at Len, only to find that the expression on his face is not quite the wary, scrutinizing gaze he had imagined.

Len looks away quickly, but not before Mick registers the sadness in his eyes, the dejected slump of his shoulders. Len always could make himself look so small, despite the fact that Mick only had an inch on him. He’s tucked into himself that way now, arms crossed over his body, one holding the other.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Len actually _misses_ him.

But he does know better. Len doesn’t miss _him._ He misses that other guy, the man Mick Rory was before Leonard Snart left him behind. But that man is slowly becoming a broken mess somewhere, lost in time, and Mick has long since stopped mourning for him.

He likes who he is now, as much as he’s ever thought about such a thing. Mick was fine before, and he’s fine now…but just as the thought of him now would have repelled him before, the thought of reverting back to who he was then is just as repellant. He can’t imagine it.

So when the awful pull-and-fade feeling starts to come back, he can’t pretend the indifference he felt before. Len is once again undecided, debating whether or not to go back and save his friend, his partner, _his_ Mick Rory.

This Mick Rory doesn’t belong to Len, or to the Time Masters any longer. He’s his own, he belongs to himself. And the thought of losing that terrifies him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter has some extremely ass-pull time travel bullshit in it. I've been assured that it's no more absurd than anything the show writers have come up with, but I'm still going to try to make it at least make a LITTLE more sense before I post it. Stay tuned!


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